THE CHALLENGE OF AGRICULTURAL ETHICS

Abstract

The transformation of the society requires changes of the public policies, including the agricultural policy. As a result, it is important to have "the agricultural ethics" as a mechanism of the synergies and interactions amongst agricultural economy, rural sociology, moral philosophy and other related disciplines. The aim of this paper is to identify the ethical dilemmas and the ethical problems related to the economic or agricultural policy and practices. The methodological approach was based on the actual state of the art of the "converging" and "diverging" tendencies among the ethics and the various social practices and institutions in the historical context. Ethics includes principles, rules and behaviours, which came from the tradition, rules, costumes and the education system. An ethical dilemma has no solution, on the contrary it appears when a thing is neither well defined at present nor offers an optimum alternative option for the future. In addition to the identification, some ethical dilemmas can be quantified as well. The conclusion of this paper is the necessity to maintain the ethical imperatives in the context of the economic and agricultural policy formulation, and in the control of the market solutions in direction to the desired social change.